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Greyfeld of Aiden
Greyfeld of Aiden was a Dwelf priest of Aiden, and a noted sage. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, but it is known that he lived during the last century of the Elvish Empire and the last of his great works was published in the early 400s AC. Many of his historical and theoretical works are still considered required reading for most educated people. His first great work was his "Discussion on the Nature of Magic" published sometime around 16 BC. Discussion on the Nature of Magic Magic, in and of itself, is a natural force occurring like any other such as magnetism or weather. The thing that makes magic different from these other naturally occurring forces of nature is the ability of intelligent races to harness it for a variety of unusual and different in purpose. Regardless of how you harness it, magnetism is a set force having a similar end result. Magic however, can be harnessed by two separate people and end up having to radically different end results. The purpose of this report is to explain how magic works, focusing on the Arcane magic of wizards. Magical Weave The first problem in the study of thaumaturgy is defining the source of power from which magic originates. It is commonly believed that magic is powered by energy forming a bubble around the planet of Meaghana similar to the way the atmosphere does. This bubble is typically known as the magical weave. For all intensive purposes, the weave seems to exist in the Prime material plane, the astral plane, the ethereal plane as well as all of the inner and outer planes. however the magic emanating from the weave seems strongest on the Prime material. This differing amount of transplanar energy explains in part why certain magical spells and items react differently when taken from the plane of their original creation As with all things, magical energy follows the law of conservation of energy; namely energy can neither be created nor destroyed. The question then is, how does the weave replenish itself, being that so great a number of wizards draw energy from almost continually. The answer is as with priestly power, the conversion of energy. This conversion is the conversion of the energy given off by faith into the energy contained within a magical weave. The thoughts of all creatures are electrical impulses. These impulses when focused towards one thought, transfer the energy to that thought. This means that magical energy is little more then the converted brainpower all of this sentient creatures that live upon the face of Meaghana. The slightly alarming in idea that must accompany this is, if belief in magic wanes so then does its power. This idea will be discussed later in the section dealing with magical immunities. Spell casting and the science of Thaumaturgy Spell casting is simply the performing of a certain set of actions in order to tap into the energy contained in the magical weave in shape as to the desires of the spell caster. It is a then important to understand the components that make up a spell. In spell casting their three separate types of components necessary to unlock the magic contained within the weave. The these are known as a verbal or spoken, somatic or gesture, and material or physical. By combining certain words gestures and items in the proper manner one can call upon the power contained within the weave to create a spell. Exactly how these components perform this action is not agreed upon, but if one basis assumptions on the theory of conversion of energy, this then is to assume that these particular words gestures and materials work because the wizard who is casting a spell truly believes in his mind that this is what needs to be done for the spell to work properly. This also explains the ability of some wizards of to cast the same spell differently from your average wizard. For instance, the wizards that specialize in the school of song can cast spells with only verbal components whereas other mages who can cast some of the exact same spells require in some cases both somatic in material components in addition to the verbal components the song mages use. This belief system also explains much of the way wizards can research and create new spells. A wizard who seeks to perform a certain spell function researches and studied is the older magical tomes until they find a way to cast a spell that is understandable to them. This also explains why the no two Mages can ever research and create the exact same spell because each mages' thought patterns are different and thus they would require different things to gain the belief that the spell will function. However once a mage has solidified his thought energy in to a certain manner of spell casting then it is a set thing and he may then explain it to other mages, thus teaching them the spell. This leads to the creation of schools of magics, and the existence of specialty mages. Certain people tend to think along the same lines. This means that certain groups are more inclined to view magic from a certain point of view. For instance, a certain group of people believe some that is magical ability inherent in music, the wizards in this groove begin studying song and how it can be used to tap into the energy given by the weave. Soon the school song magic is born. This explains how the Schools of thaumaturgy were created in the Schools of geometries, song Wild magic etc. and these schools of philosophy however were created using a different approach. Namely in that of focusing on the end result of magic as opposed to how the end result was achieved example: a group of wizards and believes that magic has a stronger effect on the dead as opposed to living creatures. Then after a certain amount of experimentation, soon school necromancy is born. This line of thinking also explain some of the existence of opposition schools. Certain mages focusing as they do on one type of magic, would naturally find it harder to understand the theory and thought patterns behind magic whose effects are radically different. This means this by its very nature of this magic is impossible to be understood by a specialist mage and so they never are able to learn spells from certain schools. The last area of discussion when dealing with spell casting and the science of thaumaturgy is the reason behind wizards of certain power levels only being able to cast a certain numbers of spells every day. The reason inherent in this is simple, the that begin to draw energy from the weave a wizard must give a certain amount of his thought process as energy to the weave. This prohibits less experienced wizards from giving mass amounts of energy to the weave, because they've not yet learned how to gather as much unnecessary energy as more powerful wizards. Magical items: Existence and Creation The next area of magical study to focus on is the existence and creation of magical items. But for the purpose is of this report magical items will be put into one of four categories: wizardly, priestly, God-given, natural. * Wizardly items are those created through the use of Arcane magic usually with the assistance of the "enchant an item " spell. *Priestly items are those created through the use of divine spells cast by worshiper of the gods. *God-given items, those created by the gods themselves through the use of their own Holy energies *Natural items, those created through either natural phenomenon or the focus of large amounts of thought or faith energy. Wizardly or priestly items are very easy to understand as far as their creation is concerned. To create such an item is this the wizard or priest traps a certain amount of energy originating from the magical weave into an everyday item much the same way as if there were casting a spell. And this means that the items powered originates from the weave directly and thus it is affected by spells such as detect and dispel magic. God-given items bear slightly more difficult to understand insofar as their creation. To create these items a god that it gives a portion of their holy energy directly into the item. This holy energy originates from the faith and the belief of their followers This allows a god given item to be far more powerful than one created by mortals. However because of the similarities between Holly energy and the energy from the magical weave got given weapons are still affected by spell such as detect and dispel magic but most of the time to a much lesser degree. This brings us to the natural items. And these items are incredibly difficult to understand this is because they're very few in number and it very resistant to spells and effects that study magical creations. Natural items themselves are divided into two separate categories, faith items and accidental items. But if these items are created when a large enough group or a strong enough personality believes that an item has supernatural powers strongly enough for that person's thought energy to enter the items and empower it This is where many primitive priests and shamans particularly those that worship Glug Goblinlord gain their magical items This is also possible explanation of why a holy swords have certain effects for normal people but an increased, more powerful effect for paladins. These items, although empowered, are not magical and thus are not affected by spells that target magical items. Psionically power items also fall within this category. The the other category of of natural items or were known as accidental items. And these accidental items are incredibly rare most of them being unique. Certain calls for an accidental item would be perhaps is a sword that was in the area of a duel between two mighty mages. It is possible that a small portion of the magic released by the mages was trapped within a sword thus enchanting it. Many times any items that have long been within the hoard of a powerful magic using monster will look absorb certain magical dweomers and thus gain minor magical powers. It is incredibly rare for these items to gain any large amount of power. Intelligent Magical Items Occasionally it is possible to discover magical items that possess their own native intelligence this is possibe in usually one of two ways. The first of being in the case of a god given item. In this case it is possible that the god placed inside the item an intelligence, either mimicking that of a once loyal follower or even possibly creating a new soul for the item. The second possibility is for items created in either of the three other possible ways. This way is that the amount of energy from the weave trapped within the item partially reverts back into thought energy. This energy would then reform a personality very much akin to that from which the thought energy in originated usually the mage who created the item or a personality very similar. Magical resistance and other special protections. It has been noted that several creatures and even certain places or particularly resistant to the effects of magic. Considering the above findings, the most likely reason this is a lack of belief in the power of magic. While this is sometimes true, many creatures with magical resistances, such as Dragons, are highly magical in and of themselves. This causes researchers to formulate other potential reasons for magic resistance. One possible explanation is that magic resists itself. The reasoning behind this theory is that the more magical item or creature is, the more difficult it is to enchant the monster or creature. In other words, the more magical energies an item contains the, the more is needed to invoke a response from that item. A second explanation is that a creature with magic resistance has such a solid picture of how magic operates that instinctively rejects magic that is different from its own. This explains why creatures with magical resistances can cast spells upon themselves with little to no problem. This seems the most acceptable explanation considering the above findings. Another protection deserving special note is the Dwarven ability to resist magic. While not total resistance the Dwarves have the ability to avoid the worst of magical effects quite often . It is believed that the reason this is the generations long disbelief in the power of magic. While the belief of dwarves is by no means strong enough to completely cancel magic, it is strong enough to weaken the effects of magics cast upon them a decent percentage of the time. Also, it is believed that this genetic disbelief is the reason that amoungst all intelligent races, only dwarves have no practitioners of wizardly magic. It is my hope that this report leads to greater understanding and the greater interests in the forces behind that which we call magic. Although this report is rather in depth I believe that there is much more we can learn about this subject. I submit this report to my brothers, and to all the people of Lerias, in the hopes that my humble work will force all look more deeply into that which we take for granted. In Aiden's name, Greyfeld of Aiden Category:Aiden Category:Dwelf Category:Greyfeld of Aiden Category:Magic